The Girls
We are raising a breed of layer called Novogen Brown out of Hillside Hatchery in PA, a sister hatchery to Freedom Ranger, which supplies us with our meat birds.
These ladies are quality layers, producing large to extra-large brown eggs with a hard shell at their peak. They are active foragers and thrive in a pastured system as we provide them. The girls are moved regularly based on pasture health and forage. They are supplemented with a grain to balance out their diet, but they prefer to graze and catch insects during the day. The birds are outside during the daylight hours and given ample room within electric netting to exhibit their natural tendencies. To help guard the chickens from predators they run with Chinese Geese which act as watchdogs. All birds are housed in a shelter overnight to protect them from ground and aerial predators.
Eggs should become available in late March or April. They will be clean, but unwashed to keep the natural bloom that surrounds the shell as the egg is laid to protect the contents from spoilage. On occasion, we may offer goose eggs for sale, which contain a higher protein content, are much larger, and excellent for baking and regular cooking.
Older hens (2-3 yrs old) may become available for sale as layers as they still have many good years of laying ahead of them, or processed as stew birds for consumption.